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Emotional Intelligence

Regrets – Connection

by Ron Potter April 7, 2022

In Daniel Pink’s latest book, The Power of Regret: How Looking Backward Moves Us Forward, Pink lists four core regrets:

Connection seems to me to be one of the most impactful of the regrets. It’s the time you never spend on those relationships.

My Friend

I had a friend who was the oldest friend of my life. Our parents were friends after WWII. We knew each other from the time we were months old. Then our lives took different roads. While I was off to engineering school, he ended up in Viet Nam. While I didn’t think bad of those guys who ended up there, it did take our lives in very different directions. Our paths never seemed to cross much after that. Until one day he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. He ended up at the Univerisity of Michigan hospital near where I was living at the time. After that, our lives crossed many times as I visited him in the hospital and those old feelings of friendship returned.

Then one day the doctors declared that he was in full remission and was able to go home. Unfortunately, the cancer soon returned and other seemed to be nothing left to do. But, I felt very blessed that we had connected again and many of the old memories of growing up returned.

Then I received a call from his son that my friend was dying and only had a few days left. I immediately headed for his home and got there in time to be with him in his last days. My friend slept most of the time that I visited and his wife told me that he didn’t recognize his surroundings or the people around him. However, with I went in to see him and stroke his forehead it seemed to me that he recognized me. It may have been wishful thinking on my part but I did feel like he knew I was there. The next day his son called again to let me know he had passed away.

Connections

This is what Pink was referring to when he identified the fourth regret as connections. They’re fleeting. They slip away easily. They take an effort to stay connected. Here was my oldest friend and, just because our lives took different directions, we lost some of that connection. I’ve made many new friendships around the world since then but, because I didn’t make the effort, I regret that I let one of my oldest relationships slip away. Like many of these lists, the last is often the most impactful. It’s that way with this list of regrets. Letting connections slip away from us created the most regret in the end. Don’t let it happen. Evaluate your connections. Some of them are shallow and the effort is never made to develop a strong bond. However, others are worth the effort to put in the time, make that call, and keep the connection alive.

Worth the Effort

As I said, I have worked all over the world and made “friends” in many corners of the world. But with a few of them, I have developed long-lasting relationships. I was having dinner with one connection that I cherish and have developed over the years. During dinner, he began to cry because of a tragedy in his life. When we finished dinner and he got his emotions back under control, he admitted to me that I was the one person he had cried with about the tragedy. I felt connected.

Another client was having difficulty talking with me about a certain topic. She finally admitted that her boss (years ago) had raped her and she had never been able to share that with anyone except me. I felt connected.

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BS Indicator

by Ron Potter November 4, 2021

I’ve started reading a book titled The Life-Changing Science of Detecting Bullshit. I started reading it just because it sounded like a fun read (my warped sense of humor, I guess). However, once I started to read the research and science behind it, the topic is fascinating.

The Causes and Consequences of B.S.

John Petrocelli is a social psychologist and professor of psychology at Wake Forest University, who actually studies this issue. How fun would that be?

He finds that people tend to spread B.S. when they feel obligated to have an opinion about something they know little about—and when they feel they aren’t going to be challenged. The Wall Street Journal did a fascinating interview with Dr. Potrocelli. A couple of findings I found interesting were:

B.S. is when someone communicates something with little regard for the truth, genuine evidence, or established knowledge.
Liars actually know and care about the truth. They need to know the truth so they can distract you from it. The BS’er not only doesn’t know the truth, they don’t care about it.
One reason people BS is simply the obligation to have an opinion. People feel they have to have an opinion about everything. They tell each other what they want to hear to avoid conflict or hurt feelings.

Obligation to Have an Opinion

Why do we feel we need to have an opinion? We could just as easily remain silent or openly indicate that we don’t have an opinion on a particular. Even better, if we were to indicate that we haven’t formed an opinion because we don’t know all the facts and haven’t yet figured out the truth.

The WSJ indicates that the main reason people BS is to promote one’s status—to get ahead, appear knowledgeable, competent, skilled, or admired. Unless these BS’ers are challenged, it can lead to some of these consequences but when challenged properly, their BS is quickly exposed and leads to the failure of accomplishing any of those goals.

Detecting BS

Our ability to detect BS has been dulled through this time of isolation. We’ve lost some of our natural ability to detect. The WSJ article points out a couple of great questions that we can ask to retune our BS detector.

Ask people to clarify, they’ll often take a step back and think. And a lot of times, they’ll dial back their claim. So the first question is: “What? What are you saying?”
“How? How do you know that’s true? How did you come to that conclusion?” We have often been taught to ask the “Why” question first. However, Dr. Petrocelli suggests that the “Why” is not a good question to ask. That leads people into the abstract, to talk about their values and the heady stuff. The “how” question gets them down to the concrete, real-world, practical things that we would call evidence.
The other question should be: “Have you ever considered any alternatives?” The reason for this question is that if they say no, you know they probably haven’t thought through the thing very well.

The Power of Detecting BS

Something on your radar just pinged and you’re not sure if this person is telling you the truth or just BSing. Or you might simply be ignorant of the situation, the facts, and the truth. In either case, asking the questions above will help you, your team, and your leadership be better at what you’re trying to accomplish. Become a good BS detector simply by keeping your radar up and asking the right questions.

You’ll be thought of as a solid citizen and a critical thinker. Don’t accept or spew BS.

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Is Criticism Slowing You Down?

by Ron Potter October 7, 2021

As you’ve probably noticed in my blogs, I’m a fan of Aristotle’s philosophy. One of his quotes makes a great point about criticism:

“There is only one way to avoid criticism: do nothing, say nothing, be nothing.”

I have seen and met those people. They are so afraid of what others think that they tend to not do anything in fear of criticism. Therefore they say nothing that could be constructed as critical or even innovative. In doing so they become nothing. They become invisible. They are never considered for promotion. They are never considered to lead a team. Their thoughts are never considered when looking for innovative ideas. They are nothing.

Criticism Happens

If we think about Aristotle’s quote in reverse:

Do something
Say what’s on your mind (in a constructive way)
Be something.

You are a unique human being. You bring something unique and different from every other person. Recognize the value in that uniqueness.

Do Something

Doing nothing can be the result of a boss who is all-controlling. If that’s the case, look for another position, look for another job, look to a new company. Being in a position of never doing anything other than what you’re told and how to do it, will suck the life out of you! You will find yourself a greatly diminished human being that will destroy your self-esteem and it will be noticed by your loved ones.

But doing something will almost always bring criticism. If you step back and view the situation almost from a third-party position, you’ll often see that the criticism comes from people who themselves have low self-esteem. The criticism comes in an effort to make themselves look better or feel better about themselves. It never works. Healthy people see right through that maneuver and discount the other person, not you.

Say What’s on Your Mind

This one must be accomplished with good self-esteem. When you’re in that state of mind, you’re not criticizing, you’re just trying to look at things from a different perspective. Remember that we are all unique. We all see things from a different perspective.

Teams that can listen and respect each other’s points of view are the healthiest and strongest teams.

Always stay in a respectful position. Acknowledge that everyone has a unique perspective and it’s best if we all hear and understand that perspective. Great teams are not “group think” teams. We’re not lemmings blindly following the herd off the cliff. Someone needs to say “I see us heading for a cliff and the results aren’t good”. Just that simple statement will often get others sharing “you know, I’ve been wondering the same thing. This just doesn’t feel right”.

Be open, honest, and respectful. Understand what’s on everyone’s mind. It can save the team

Be Something

What do you want to be known for?

The one who gets the team thinking?
The respectful one who always brings the best out in others?
The Jerk?
The non-existent, silent one in the room?

This is your choice. Get to know the other team members as human beings. Help them get to know you as a human being. We are all unique. We become the best team when we understand, respect, and use that uniqueness to build a great teams and reach great team decisions.

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Blog Leadership

Entitled Anger

by Ron Potter August 12, 2021

“What we know is that entitlement is correlated with anger, meaning the more entitled you are the angrier you get,” said Ryan Martin, the author of Why We Get Mad: How to Use Your Anger for Positive Change.

Entitled

What does it mean to be entitled? A dictionary definition is:

believing oneself to be inherently deserving of privileges or special treatment
Italics are mine.

Believing oneself! Yes, it can come from your position in the pecking order but the definition says that you believe you’re entitled and deserve special treatment.

Leadership and Entitlement

I’ll remind my readers that the number one attitude of a great leader is humbleness. I would say that being humble is the opposite of feeling entitled.

We’ve all run into the entitled leader. Actually, they are not leaders, they’ve simply obtained a position of leadership. But they believe that because they have become a VP or general manager, they’re entitled to special treatment and feel no hesitancy to use a command and control style.

Anger

Anger can be real and justified at times. Even Jesus displayed anger at the money changers that were taking advantage of the poor.

The money changers were taking advantage of those who visited the temple. This made Jesus angry and he said “My house shall be called the house of prayer”.

Anger can be justified but be very, very careful of your motives.

On a Clear Day You Can See General Motors

Patrick J. Wright is the author of On a Clear Day You Can See General Motors, an account of John De Lorean’s departure from General Motors. (The account is written without De Lorean’s cooperation.)

De Lorean left General Motors to start his own company, Delorean Motor Company (DMC). If you’re a fan of “Back to the Future” you’ll remember the DMC used by “Doc” to go back in time.

There was one very telling section in that book that described the destructive nature of entitlement.

GM executives arrived at work each morning and their company valet service would pick up their car, take it to the shop, fix any squeaks, rattles, or other issues. The car was then washed and cleaned inside and out and returned to the executive for their drive home.

Based on these executives’ experience, GM was making some of the finest cars in the world. But the general public had a different experience. To them, GM was producing some of the worst cars in the industry. The executives didn’t understand. Sometimes they even got angry at the public for thinking that way. Their anger was based on entitlement!

Do you feel entitled?

That feeling or belief will get you nowhere. In fact, it will be destructive to you and others.

It can be difficult to see our own entitlement. You must develop good friends that are not afraid to tell you if you are acting that way. You must develop a great team that can talk about anything, even your behavior, without fear of reprisal. Entitlement will destroy you! Do whatever you can to keep it from creeping into your life.

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Blog Culture

People are Crazy

by Ron Potter June 3, 2021

The son of a friend of mine just graduated from law school. When asked what type of law he would like to pursue, his response was: “I’m good at writing and I enjoy research. Plus, if I go into research I don’t have to deal with people.”

As my friend was telling me this he told me this story, he said “I never listen to country music but when I got into my car, somehow the radio had been switched to a country music channel and the repeating line of the song being played was:

‘God is great, beer is good
And people are crazy’

People are Crazy

Throughout my career, I’ve dealt with fairly healthy people. And they’re all crazy! Including me. One of my clients said that everybody is 15% crazy. And if their 15% matched her 15%, everything was good. But if their 15% was at the opposite end of the spectrum from her 15%, they were going to have real problems, because they were crazy!

Smart People are Crazy

I think people with large IQ’s are particularly stubborn when it comes to crazy.

They’re smart.
They’re logical.
They can think through things.
They assume there is no other way to see a problem or solution.

Our reaction to them is that… “They’re crazy.”

Untrustworthy People are Crazy

When people are untrustworthy, devious, or manipulative they can be seen as crazy. If someone acts one way in certain circumstances and another in others, they are not seen as having integrity. They can be termed crazy.

If you feel you’re being manipulated by another person (and we always seem to know) one of our reactions is “Are they crazy?” People with integrity are seldom seen as crazy.

Overcoming Crazy

We mentioned integrity above. That’s a big part of overcoming crazy. Another trait is humility. Humble people don’t believe they know it all. They don’t seem crazy. A third is curiosity; it requires good listening. I’ve often talked about listening with the intent to understand. When you’re really curious, it requires that you learn something while you’re listening and asking questions. Listening with the intent to understand really cuts down on craziness.

Where is your Crazy?

People are crazy!

Have you thought about where you seem crazy to other people?

Think about it.
Ask about it.
Do something about it.

Being less crazy will help you be better at everything you do.

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Blog Leadership

PREgret

by Ron Potter May 20, 2021

Years ago I was thinking about the regrets in my life. I was asking myself if there were things I should have or could have done to eliminate or reduce the number of regrets. As I was thinking about the topic, I notice a familiar pain in my sternum. I began to realize that I had a physical manifestation when I regretted something I had said or done. I began to ask people I knew where their regret pain manifested itself.

Where is the pain?

Everyone seemed to have a different answer. I heard locations like:

Neck
Shoulders
Forehead
The base of the skull
Forearms
etc.

The answers were many and varied, but the pain was a given. No one questioned the pain itself, they just had different answers of where it was located.

“Listen” to the pain

If the pain always shows up somewhere, become familiar with it. The pain can and will become very familiar. If the pain is present and identifiable, you will “know” you are in one of those moments that will result in regret. Here’s the key, “will result in regret”.

Regret Pre-Indicator

Through experience, I began to learn that the pain was a precursor of regretful actions. I eventually read some science about how these neurotransmitters work and indeed, there is an early warning system. That means that the pain you become familiar with is actually a precursor to the thing you’re about to do or say will cause regret— PREgret!

I don’t know if this is a good thing or bad thing but I have become so aware of my “regret pain” that it often triggers a debate in my head:

You’re about to say something that you’re going to regret.

I know, but I think it needs to be said.

But you will regret it! Maybe you should just back off a minute.

But it needs to be said. I’m going to say it anyway.

REGRET

Where does it hurt?

Become familiar with your “regret” pain. If you tune into it, you’ll have a lot fewer regrets in life.

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Myers Briggs Type Indicator: Diversity

by Ron Potter March 11, 2021

We can see almost daily comments about diversity. It creates great division when it seems to be lacking and it’s talked about in glowing terms when it’s promoted as the issue that will solve all of our problems. The issue I get concerned about is that we think of diversity in too narrow terms.

Most of the time we are thinking about and talking about race or gender. While these are very important I believe there’s much more to diversity than those two categories. Please don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that we shouldn’t be talking about and focusing on race and gender, I’m saying there is more to consider.

Myers-Briggs Helps with Diversity

A couple of years ago I wrote several blogs focusing on the use of Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). I’ve been amazed at how many questions and comments I’ve received from people wanting to know more about MBTI in general and asking questions about specific situations and wondering if understanding MBTI would help.

This is why I’m starting a short series on MBTI again. I have not gone back and read any of my previous blogs. I just wanted this series to be inspired by my current thinking.

MBTI is Not a Label

Most of the teams I worked with wanted to label everyone to help them understand the person better. I always discouraged this practice and I didn’t like to hear about trained professionals who thought labels were a natural conclusion. They are not!

MBTI checks for preferences. Meaning, in a given situation what would your natural preference chose? This doesn’t mean that you can’t train yourself to look at things from many aspects, not just your natural preference.

In fact, the best leaders I’ve worked with have trained themselves to look and behave in the world in almost all of the MBTI aspects, not just their natural preferences. I’ve even asked people who work for these great leaders to tell me what they think the leader’s MBTI is. They can’t. They can see them perform, ask questions, make decisions using almost all of the facets of MBTI. It’s one of the things that make them a good leader.

I’m not going to go into great depth with every aspect of the MBTI. I’m going to focus on the four natural pairs, how they conflict and can also complement each other. I will also look at the statistics I’ve found that show how much of each time is present in the population as a whole as well as in business leadership teams.

Four Pairs

Over the next few weeks, we’ll take a look at the four pairs that exist within MBTI. They are:

Energizing – Extraversion vs Introversion {EI}
Perceiving – Sensing vs Intuition (SN)
Judging – Thinking vs Feeling (TF)
Orientation – Judging vs Perceiving (JP)

Each person has a “preference” for one unit of each pair. For instance, my MBTI is ENTJ. That means that I have a tendency to be Extraverted, Intuitive, Thinking, and Judging. Thus ENTJ.

Be Careful

I can’t tell you how many times people have said something to me like, “I’ve taken the MBTI many times and I always come out the same. I’m an ESTP.”

Be careful on two fronts. The first is that you are not an ESTP or any other type. It simply means that you have a preference for a certain set of pairs.

Second, be careful what you remember. For those people who have said that or something similar to me, I’ve asked to see their previous results. They are almost always wrong. They have simply categorized themselves into something they like or that resonates with a particular type but they are totally wrong in what they remember as their tested and identified type.

Scientific

There are a couple of other stories I would like to tell you. I was once asked by the head of the psychology department in a major pharmaceutical company to help her with her team. I told her I wanted to collect MBTI data of her staff so they could see how each other approached the world. She agreed. However, once the letter went out to her staff I received a scathing email from one of her managers. She wanted to know how I could expect to promote the work of these charlatans who weren’t even scientists with such an esteem group. I simply said that her boss had asked me to do it and to hang in there. As we finished the session, this person quietly came up to me and asked if I could do a session with her team.

A Rose by Any Other Color

Another experience I’ve had over the last few years is that clients would say to me, “We don’t use MBTI anymore. It’s very dated. Now we use [name of another product]. I said that was no problem, would they please send me what literature or website they had and how their people fit into this “new” chart. I would read through the data and then in every case, did a full day session with the team to help them understand themselves and the team in more depth. They were always amazed at how much I had learned in such a short time. What I often didn’t tell them that the “new” product was simply MBTI repackaged with different words and colors.

Granted, some of the language is dated and could be upgraded for modern teams to understand better. But the essence of MBTI is solid and extensive.

I hope you’ll enjoy and learn from our journey over the next few weeks.

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Blog Culture

Science is Always Right

by Ron Potter February 11, 2021

But scientists are not always right! Even scientists have a perspective on the world that will shape the scientific data they see.

All too often I hear people refer to science as the answer that ends all arguments. As a Christian, I especially dislike the one where Christians don’t believe in science. I’m a Christian and I believe in science. I’m not technically a scientist but I do have an engineering degree that depends a great deal on science.

Francis Collins might be considered this nation’s leading scientist. He is currently the Director of the National Institute of Health (NIH) and a leader in the Human Genome Project. Dr. Collins wrote a book titled, Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief.

Virtual Meetings

My point in this rambling is that we are entering a new era of virtual meetings versus face-to-face meetings. I believe this is our future. Many companies, especially the ones with collaboration platforms such as Webex, Microsoft Teams, Zoom, and others are adding technology to improve virtual meetings. I believe they will have a positive effect on meetings but they are also claiming that this technology will create high-performance teams.

I believe they’re missing a key point.

Tech That Aims to Improve Meetings

The Wall Street Journal recently printed an article called “Tech That Aims to Improve Meetings”. For the article, they interviewed management experts, technologists, academics, and startup founders. They broke the article into the following categories:

Who’s Paying Attention? Worker’s posture and expressions are analyzed to determine positivity and engagement levels.
AI to Manage the Flow with an AI-powered moderator. It would provide feedback, facilitate flow, monitor time, and interject if someone is getting cut off or talked over.
A Seat at the Table: The software would assure that the meeting includes a diverse ethnic and gender balance.
Immersive Presentations: Participants would use virtual-reality glasses to view materials such as PowerPoint slides and others. The goal is to have the participants flip pages, go deeper and move their heads to flip between tables, charts, presentations, and the meeting itself, eliminating the need to flip back and forth between these things on a shared screen.
A Fitbit for Meetings: In this one, each participant wears a smartwatch that analysis and tells them about their personal overall performance.
The Virtual Office Party: This is an attempt to provide the casual chat between participants by having their avatar hear only the voices of nearby avatars as they move around.
Data-Driven Collaboration: Avatars are used in this one as well to “help” people casually talk while keeping track of personal interactions between employees to help match up people across departments when needed.

A line at the beginning of the article says “Critics say elements of tools under discussion raise concerns about worker privacy and may face resistance as being too intrusive.” I think if they had explored this one point further the conclusion may be that none of this technology will work because workers will find it too intrusive.

The Culture Code: The Secrets of Highly Successful Groups

At the same time that WSJ article appeared, I was also reading The Culture Code by Daniel Coyle. I found the contrast between the two documents striking. While the WSJ article may be focused on running meetings more efficiently, that does not translate into higher performance. In The Culture Code, it’s stated that the highly successful groups talk about relationships. There isn’t much in the WSJ article that talks about relationships.

One section of the books talks about patterns of interaction:

“When I visited these groups, I noticed a distinct pattern of interaction. The pattern was located not in the big things but in little moments of social connection:

Close physical proximity, often in circles

- Profuse amounts of eye contact
- Physical touch (handshakes, fist bumps, hugs)
- Lots of short, energetic exchanges (no long speeches)

High levels of mixing

- everyone talks to everyone
- Few interruptions
- Lots of questions
- Intensive, active listening
- Humor, laughter
- Small, attentive courtesies (thank-yous, opening doors, etc.)

One more thing: I found that spending time inside these groups was almost physically addictive.”

MIT’s Human Dynamics Lab

There is also an interview with Alex Pentland who runs MIT’s Human Dynamics Lab. He said:

“If I lean a few inches closer to you, we might begin mirroring. It only works if we’re close enough to physically touch.”

Pentland says that words are noise. Group performance depends on behavior that communicates one powerful overarching idea: We are safe and connected.

Safe and Connected

All the technology currently available or available in the foreseeable future may in fact make meetings more productive. However, I currently don’t see any that help people feel safe and connected. This will be the challenge for the near future.

GPS4Leaders

In the app we’re developing, we do get at the issues that help people feel safe and connected such as trust and relationships. But it will still require the participants to take corrective action and make changes when the data indicates these are a problem.

Star participants and leaders of the future will be good at this!

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Blog Leadership

Truths of Life

by Ron Potter January 28, 2021

Truths of life can come in many forms. I found this list from Dr. Travis Bradberry to be pretty complete and comprehensive.

Great success is often preceded by failure

All too often we think that success came easy to a person. We might think they’ve always been successful and their current success is simply a continuation of that. However, it doesn’t take much discussion with successful people to hear about the failures and moments of frustration on the road to success. If you’re one of those people that think being successful just naturally happens to some, then you’re admitting that you don’t have the fortitude to live through and work through the failures in order to experience success. And to be clear, I’m not talking about large financial success. I often think of conscientious teachers who struggle and suffer wondering if they’ll ever make a breakthrough in a student’s life. They don’t always experience it but when they do have a positive impact, there’s nothing quite like it.

Being busy does not equal being productive

This one seems to be pervasive in today’s world. If people are busy all day, they think that is being productive! I’ve experienced a couple of “moments” in my life when I have worked hard at eliminating the word busy from my everyday language. I often find myself in that trap. I might think I really needed to connect with someone but was too busy to get it done. That’s just an excuse. Being too busy simply means I chose not to put an item higher on my priority list.

I was told once by a Japanese acquaintance that the word busy was made up of two symbols in their written language. The first symbol would be interpreted as a human being. The second symbol would be interpreted as a destroyer. Together the word busy would be translated as “human destroyer.” Don’t let busyness destroy you.

You’re only as good as those you associate with

We work hard at instilling this in our kids. They shouldn’t hang out with that person or crowd because they’re a bad influence on them. We seem to forget this as an adult. Even worse, we think because we’re adults we’re strong enough and wise enough to not let it happen to us. Wrong. If you don’t associate with positive, can-do people, you’ll never make it on your own. Even if it means leaving the company you work for, do it. You must hang out with people who are positive and care for you and others as valuable human beings.

You’re living the life you created

It’s easier to think of ourselves as victims of circumstances when things are not as we wish they should be. The truth is, you’ve created the life you’re living by the choices you’ve made. Maybe you can’t stomach or tolerate failure. Maybe you’re just being busy assuming that’s being productive. Maybe you’re not associating with the types of people that have your best interest at heart. You’ve made these decisions! You’ve created this life. Don’t blame others or circumstances.

Fear is the number one source of regret

Fear of failure. Fear of loss. Fear of what others might think of you. Fear of change. These are the things that kept you from doing things but that bring you regret now.

You don’t have to wait for an apology to forgive

Lack of forgiveness is like cancer. It will eat your insides out. If you need an apology before you forgive then it’s not really forgiveness anyway. It’s simply a barter. Forgiveness is not bartered.

Live in the moment

Bradberry says “No amount of guilt can change the past, and no amount of anxiety can change the future.” I don’t live in the past. There is nothing you can do about it so why worry about it. However, I’m really bad about living in the future. I don’t believe I’m anxious about it, but I think more about the future than I do about the moment. I’ve missed a lot along the way by living too much in the future.

Your self-worth must come from within

You know those people who seem to be worried more about what people think, what people might think, or how they think others view them. There is no value in this kind of worry. If you’re not comfortable with who you are it won’t make a difference anyway. Remember, you’re living the life you created.

Life is short

This one is so much clearer the older we get. Wise people don’t need to get physically old before they realize this. Life is short. Don’t waste your time being busy. Don’t waste your time with a priority list that is not important to you. Live life in the moment.

Change is inevitable—embrace it

Life doesn’t happen in straight lines. It’s constantly changing. It can easily throw you out of your comfort zone. But it’s inevitable. The sooner you realize that the easier it is to handle change. Make the right decisions. But don’t regret it if you don’t make the right decision. That’s in the past; there is nothing you can do about it. Life is short. Live it in the moment. It will be a different moment tomorrow!

A list of ten is too big of a number for most of us to keep track of and remember each day. Pick one or two of these truths. Use those to be a better person and to live a more enjoyable life. The one or two might change over time but concentrate on a couple that are creating more discomfort for you than they should. Then live an enjoyable life.

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Blog Leadership

Emotion, Humility, Humanity

by Ron Potter January 21, 2021

Howie Mandel, the comedian, identified these three traits of people who changed the world. More than a comedian, I have always found Howie to be a deep thinker as well. These were identified in a youtube video by Howie.

Emotion

We often think of emotion as something inside of us and very personal in nature. In fact, it has more to do with communication.

Even as I work with a team that has developed an app for being a better team, it seems like every day we find ourselves talking about how we should communicate with people who may be interested in our app. We talk about communicating with emotion. If people don’t feel the message, if our words don’t invoke a deep connection, they’re just words. A software app lends itself to communication with logic but people seldom remember logical statements. They decide right from the beginning if they agree with the logic or not. If they agree, then they don’t feel like they’re learning anything new. If they don’t agree, the words are almost immediately shut off and seldom remembered. Communicating with logic doesn’t create much movement.

Communication with emotion creates a deep need to listen and learn. Emotion is about communication.

Humility

Humility should not be a new concept to you, the reader of this blog. We’ve talked about the need for humility many times. It is number one on my list of great leadership traits. Humility says we’re all in this together—let’s figure it out together! Lack of humility is ego. Ego says “I have all the answers—listen to me and do what I say. I’m smarter than you.”

Humility says I don’t have all the answers. Humility wants to know what the other person thinks and gives that information equal status. They may have a better idea. They certainly have a point of view that makes others think and see things in a different way.

Humility listens to other people with the intention to understand. People feel heard. It makes people want to be more of a participant. Humility is powerful.

Humanity

I’ve written in previous blogs about an exercise I used when working with teams. I called the exercise “Human beings, not human doings.”

I always started the session with a couple of simple rules:

Listen with the Intent to Understand. You could ask questions, but only to clarify or increase your understanding. No advice was to be offered, just listen.
Put away anything you may have in front of you: papers, reports, and most importantly phones. Pay attention to the other person.

The process was simple. I asked each person to share a person or event that has deeply shaped their values. We never ended a single meeting without tears. It deeply affected people. They were being Human Beings. It was not about what they did or what was their title. This was exposing their humanity.

These three things: Emotion, Humility, and Humanity were three traits that Howie Mandel claimed were possessed by people who had changed the world!

I agree. We may define your world as your team. We may think of an impact on the whole world. But without these three, you don’t have a chance to influence either.

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Blog Leadership

Are you Confident or Cocky?

by Ron Potter December 24, 2020

Jeff Haden wrote the original article in Inc. magazine and covered more steps than I’ve focused on here.

I’ve been referred to as a “cocky SOB”, so maybe I fall on the cocky side of this equation. However, I’ve also been referred to as incredibility confident. I think the two are intertwined so let’s take a look at how you can be confident without being cocky.

Signs You Are Genuinely Confident

You listen 10 times more than you speak

I don’t know about the 10-1 volume but I’ve written several blogs on

Listening with the Intent to Understand
Listening with the Intent to Respond.

I don’t think it’s the volume of listening that you’re doing. I think it’s how you listen. You can listen a lot to a person but if it’s always with the “intent to respond”, the other person doesn’t really feel like you’re listening. It’s hard to stay in the “intent to understand” mode because our natural tendency is to get our point across. But when you stay in this mode, it really signals to the other person that you truly want to know what and why they think the way they do. It also gives them credibility. This is listening with confidence.

You duck the spotlight so it shines on others.

Not taking credit when it’s due to others shows great confidence. There is nothing cocky about this approach. Many people get threatened when they are not in the spotlight. They worry that if others gain more of the spotlight it will threaten them and their position. Confidence becomes obvious to others and is appreciated by the boss, teammates, and direct reports.

You freely ask for help

The help may need to come from anyone in the 360 circles around you. People who want to feel that they know everything about every subject will be quickly exposed (outwardly or inwardly) as needing help but being afraid to ask. Admitting that you may know a lot and have lots of experiences but you just don’t know everything makes you come across as very human. This is trustworthy.

You don’t put down other people.

Putting others down reflects more on you than it diminishes the value of the person you’re putting down.

You own your mistakes.

We’ve talked in several previous blogs about looking for someone to blame when things go wrong. This is cocky, not confident.

Confident leaders will be remembered and appreciated by everyone around them for a long time. While the actions of cocky leaders will be remembered for a long time, their names will soon be forgotten.

Be a confident leader!

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Blog Culture

Mental Models – Part II

by Ron Potter August 20, 2020

Because the first blog on Mental Models was running long, I decided to break it into Part I and Part II.

We’ll finish up the concept in this blog with:

Inversion
Occam’s Razor
Hanlon’s Razor and a final meaningful topic
So What?

Inversion

In general, the inversion model is a tool to improve our thinking. It simply means to turn our thinking upside down. Approach the problem in reverse order. Most of us move forward through a problem. Inversion indicates that we should work the problem backward. I’m also going to suggest that it can be particularly powerful to start with an end that we wouldn’t normally expect. Or start with the conclusion that was suggested by someone that you would never have thought of or may even think it is the wrong conclusion. However, starting with that end in mind and working back through the problem may reveal a perspective or mental model that you have never thought of or used before.

Occam’s Razor

The powerful point of Occam’s Razor is that simple solutions are more likely than complicated ones. The fewer moving parts the better.

Hanlon’s Razor

Simply put, Hanlon’s Razor says that we should assume ignorance rather than malice. Another way of putting this one is to assume the right explanation is the one that contains the least amount of intent. Our human antenna picks up quickly if we think someone is making an argument simply because they have an agenda (or intent). The least amount of malice and intent will often lead to the best solution.

So What?

I can hear many of you now saying “Ok Potter, what’s with all this drivel about Mental Models anyway? You’ve wasted two blogs going on about something that is interesting to you but has been boring trivia to me. So, what’s your point?”

Emotional Quotient

My answer goes back to a blog a wrote a couple of weeks ago titled Success. In that blog it was noted that there is no correlation between success and IQ but there is correlation between Success and EQ. If you want to be successful, increase your EQ.

High EQ people have a great deal of self-awareness. I don’t really care if you know what the mental models are or what they mean. But I really care that you realize there are multiple, legitimate mental models and you can really limit yourself if you are ignorant of which model you use or if you believe the model you use is the only one capable of coming up with the right answer. This last point can lead to alienation, distrust, and dislike of your teammates.

Be Self-Aware. It’s the first step of increasing your EQ that will lead to your success.

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